


This One Summer

by ectoviolet



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, More Tags To Be Added As Characters Appear, Teenaged Duck Twins, serious injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoviolet/pseuds/ectoviolet
Summary: Della and Donald might need a break from Uncle Scrooge.





	This One Summer

Della kicks and screams. “No! No, he’s still back there!” She pounds her uncle’s back with her fists. “Listen to me! We can’t  _ leave  _ him!” She can’t even see where he’s taking her. She’s blinded by tears, smoke, and ash. 

“We’re not leaving him,” Scrooge says, even and firm. 

“He can’t get out on his own, he’s--”

Scrooge sets her down. His expression is grave. “I need you to get back to the plane, and I need you to fly as low as you can over this clearing. Drop the ladder. We’ll be ready for you.” 

“I--I can’t fly by myself! I don’t have my pilot’s license, and, and what if I--”

“Della, you need to go. Now.” 

She scrambles to her feet and looks around to get her bearings. The plane is… that way. She turns, to say something to Scrooge, something important and meaningful, before things go even further south--but he’s already gone. She closes her eyes and steels herself, and then sprints in the direction of the airplane. 

Della Duck feels calm wash over herself when she reaches the pilot’s seat. This, she knows. This, she can handle. It’s as natural as breathing. She doesn’t let herself think about anything beyond her cockpit. She just focuses on getting the plane in the air. Getting the plane low over the treetops. Circling the clearing, waiting for any sight or sign of her brother and uncle. Ignoring the thick, dark smoke to the north. 

She sees them. This moment is essential. These manoeuvres are life or death. But she can’t think that way now. The last second, the one where she’s directly above them and loses sight, that is the worst. But then she hears, over the roar of the wind, her uncle’s voice, and her gut unclenches and she pulls up on the controls and flies away, away from this place, away from what has just happened, away from the thought of losing Don. 

Scrooge tells her, at some point, that it’s safe to land. She’s not sure how long she’s been flying. Her hands ache from gripping the controls too hard. She smoothly lowers her plane to the ground, rolling to a gentle stop. 

As soon as the plane stops moving, she begins to sob. 

“Della?”

She swats at Scrooge’s hand on her shoulder, curls into herself. 

“He’s alright, lass--” 

“Don’t,” she chokes. “Don’t talk to me right now.”

“We’ve been in our share of scrapes be--” 

“I said don’t  _ talk  _ to me!” She stiffens, turns to face him. “Donald is not okay. This… this is not okay, Uncle Scrooge.” 

“I’m fine, Della.” He’s so quiet, half-slurred, even Della can barely understand him. 

She looks at her brother for the first time; he’s battered half to death, slumped in his seat, struggling to keep his eyes open. Her stomach drops out. 

“Don,” she says, reaching to grab his hand. Her vision blurs, she realizes she’s still crying. “God, you look like shit.” She swipes at her eyes with the back of her wrist. 

“You don’t have to be mad at Uncle Scrooge. I was just… standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He snorts. “I get stuck with all the bad luck.” 

Della just shakes her head. “We need to find you a hospital. Then I’ll worry about being mad, okay?” 

He seems to consider it for a moment. “Hospital sounds good.” 

…

Della is trembling, standing at a payphone, willing her hands to stop shaking so she can dial her parent’s number. She finally manages to punch in the last digit and sighs as she listens to it ring. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi, Dad.” She doesn’t know where to start. What to say. 

“Della, hello,” Quackmore says. “How’s your trip with your uncle going?” 

“It’s… Dad, Donald’s hurt.” Della grips the receiver tightly. “Uncle Scrooge says, he--he says Don’s going to be okay, but--” 

“Slow down. Breathe, Della.” 

“Daddy, I’m scared.” If it weren’t so true, she’d have cringed at the sentiment. She’s fourteen. Not a little girl.

“Is Scrooge with you?” 

Della wonders how her father can sound so calm. Quackmore Duck is rarely calm. “No, he’s--we’re at a hospital, he’s with Don now.” 

“Have him call me later. What happened to Donald?”

Della feels her heart race just thinking about it. “There was a fire in the jungle. Donald got--he was pinned under something, a--a big branch, or a tree, and I tried to help him but it was  _ heavy  _ and then Scrooge, he pulled me away, and--” she breaks off. “I don’t know what happened to him after that. Uncle Scooge made me get the plane and, he went and came back with Don.” 

“And you’re not hurt?” 

Della tries to take analysis of her condition, but she’s so full of adrenaline her fingertips are tingling. “I don’t know. No.”

“Do you know where you are?” 

“Peruvia.” 

Her father sighs. “Can you narrow it down?” 

Della glances around her, as if the hospital walls will give her any new information. “Not really.”

A tinny voice tells Della, in Spanish, to insert another coin. 

“Dad, I’m out of change. I gotta go.” 

“Make sure your uncle calls me,” he says, in his ‘I-mean-business’ voice. “I love you.” 

“Love you. Say hi to Mom,” she says, as if this is a normal phone conversation.

“I will.” 

There is a click and a dial tone. 

Della feels profoundly alone. 

…

Scrooge hands Della two plane tickets, produced from seemingly nowhere. “These will get you to St. Canard. Your parents will pick you up there.” 

She takes the tickets, holds them to her chest. “What about my plane?” 

“I’ve arranged for it to be taken back to the States.” 

She stares at him for a few long moments. “Dad is making you do this.” 

He rolls his eyes. “Aye.” 

She looks down at the tickets in her hands. “How are we getting to the airport?” 

Scrooge sighs, as if heavily burdened, and reaches for his wallet. He presses a few bills into her hand. “This’ll get you a cab.” 

She nods, slips the money and tickets into the inner pocket of her jacket. “I don’t think me and Don will be seeing you for a while,” she says, and pushes past him to meet her brother in the next room. 

He doesn’t look as bad as before, which is a relief, but now the bruises have had time to form; smears of dark purple and black across every part of him Della can see, and she assumes the parts she can’t see as well. His arm is tied close to his chest in a sling, there is gauze taped to his cheek that must be covering stitches.

“Hi,” he says, sounding as miserable as he looks.

“Hi,” she says. She wants to hug him, but it would probably hurt. She reaches into her jacket and shows him the plane tickets. “We’re going home.” 

He stares at them for a few seconds. “There’s only two.” 

“Yeah.” 

“So you’re mad at Uncle Scrooge?”

She is. She shrugs. “Dad’s mad at him.” 

“It’s not his fault…” 

“It is his fault. You know, Daisy’s spending  _ her  _ summer at home. In Duckburg. Doing normal things, like--like reading, or like going to the movies with the guys. There’s no way you can die doing those things.” 

“I didn’t die.” 

Della bristles. “But you could have!” 

“How could Scrooge have known that that nutty Glomgold guy would be there?” 

“He’s got enough crazy enemies running around that he should have known one would show up!” 

Donald squares his shoulders. “What’s the matter with you?” 

“Don, I was  _ scared.”  _

He loses his fight in an instant. “I’m okay,” he says.

She feels the tremble coming back to her hands. “But you almost weren’t.” 

He reaches forward with his good arm and awkwardly wraps it around her shoulders. “I’m okay.” 

She nods.

“I’m okay,” he repeats. 

She breathes.

“I’m okay.” 

…

 

**Author's Note:**

> i know thats not how planes work. sue me.


End file.
